The challenge for me is what 80% fat looks like. If I eat 1500 calories a day – mostly veggies and protein – how do I best get the fat? I can eat an avocado with my meals, olive oil on my salads, cook my eggs in coconut oil, but I am not clear on how to eat so much fat the healthy way while keeping calories at a lower amount. I eat once – twice a day. I am not a fan of eating tons of saturated fat – bacon on everything is bad advice I have seen pushed out on other pages. Eating Keto does not mean eating high fat meats for your fat. Healthy is the focus. How to eat a heavy veggie, low protein, high fat diet the most healthy way? The calculations are challenging on a tight schedule for one trying to get started :)I would love some solid advice.

Importantly, at Diet Doctor we do not think you need to spend any extra money at all in order to revolutionize your health. You can achieve radiant health just by enjoying authentic food that is naturally low in carbohydrates, getting plenty of sleep and some exercise (going for a walk is free) and reducing stress. A lot of you who answered the survey made exactly these points in your explanations of reasons for not taking the supplements. I whole-heartedly agree.

Ketostix are very unreliable. There are many factors which can alter results such as hydration level, if you’ve worked out recently and the amount of unused ketones in your body to name just a few. Never rely of Ketostix to determine whether you are in ketosis or not. The Precision Xtra blood ketone monitor is the gold standard for testing for ketones in your body. After following a ketogenic diet for a while, you should be able to tell if you are in ketosis or not by the way you feel.
Athletic performance benefits: The use of exogenous ketone supplements for bettering physical/athletic performance is promising for several reasons. Firstly, taking exogenous ketones (particularly BHB salts) induces acute nutritional ketosis for upwards of eight hours, mimicking fasting physiology (e.g. increases fat burning, insulin sensitivity, etc.).[3]
Is keto safe? Putting yourself through this type of therapy isn't always easy and the process can take some getting used to, in particular during the initial stages when people must go through a period of fasting in order to raise ketone bodies faster. Of course, by doing this, it can put your body through a bit of shock and may cause a person to experience some short-term side effects until their bodies begin to adapt to the lifestyle and any BHB supplement they may be taking.
Hello! I’m planning on taking a short vacation and will be having “kept friendly” drinks, mostly vodka and water with lemon and stevia. When should I take my exogenous ketones? That night before bed or early the next morning or after the 3 day vacation is completely over? I’m unsure how to manage this to have the best odds of staying in ketosis and get back to burning FAT. Also, I just purchased Instaketones from Julian Bakery, what are your thoughts on this brand? Thanks for what you do!
Your body is trained to use glucose as its main energy source, but when you decrease your consumption of carbs, your body turns to another source of energy that is naturally produced by our own bodies--fat. Therefore, a great way to lose weight faster is to consume low-carb fruits, vegetables and other food that are specially designed for a low-carb diet.
Hi! My question is, how low must my current daily carb count be in order to benefit from taking your exogenous ketones? I am a 33 year old female, keeping total carbs at 100-125 grams per day. My priority is fat loss, and I do HIIT training 4-5 days a week. I’ll soon be adding in heavier strength training. I don’t function well eating less than 100 total carbs a day. Could this even benefit me? And if it will benefit me, would the befits outweigh the sodium content? I keep my sodium at 2,000 mg a day, as I’m trying to avoid water weight.
Administration of ketone supplementation significantly reduced blood glucose over the course of the study (Fig. 3a, b). MCT (5 g/kg) decreased blood glucose compared to control within 30 min which was sustained for 8 h at baseline and at week 1. MCT (10 g/kg) likewise decreased blood glucose within 30 min and lasted through the 12 h time point during weeks 2, 3, and 4. BMS + MCT (5 g/kg) lowered blood glucose compared to control from hours 1–8 only at week 1. BMS + MCT (10 g/kg) lowered blood glucose compared to control within 30 min and remained low through the 12 h time point at weeks 2, 3, and 4. Rats supplemented with BMS had lower blood glucose compared to control at 12 h in week 4 (10) (Fig. 3a). Administration of BD did not significantly change blood glucose levels at any time point during the 4-week study. KE (5 g/kg) significantly lowered blood glucose levels at 30 min for week 1, 2, 3, and 4 and was sustained through 1 h at weeks 2–4 and sustained to 4 h at week 3. (Fig. 3b).
I followed 30g carbs as my limit each day, moderate protein, increased fat intake (avocado at each main meal plus carefully chosen oils, eggs and nuts) and have upped green veg to the bucket load and incorporated a juiced lemon in water to my morning, as well as my usual water consumption. I also did intermittent fasting Mon to Thur, 18 hours fasting each day.
Again, there are very interesting animal studies plus some single case reports and small uncontrolled trials of humans with neurodegenerative disease and cancer given ketogenic diets and/or exogenous ketones (Murray 2016, Poff 2015, Roberts 2017, Newport 2015, Cunnane 2016). In some cases where the patient does not have the cognitive resources to comply with a well-formulated ketogenic diet, or where target blood levels of BOHB that work in animals are hard to achieve in humans by diet alone, supplemental ketones may have an important role to play in the prevention, management, or reversal of these disease categories.
Medium-chain-triglycerides are fats that are easily absorbed by the body and provide a number of really powerful health benefits. Fast energy, appetite control for better weight loss, increased ketone levels—you name it. They are also one of the most convenient and flexible, too. Add it to a shake, make a smoothie, or take a spoonful of it straight with some water for a quick, healthy keto boost that lasts all day. If you’re the kind of person that struggles to stick to a diet or eat a lot throughout the day, MCT oils are the perfect keto supplement.
Individuals who have clinically unregulated blood sugar, such as those with diabetes, are cautioned to consult their trusted healthcare provider before choosing to use exogenous ketones. While it can be done safely, especially in the presence of a well-formulated ketogenic food plan, there may be a risk of blood sugar dropping unexpectedly low. There may be therapeutic value in this application, but close monitoring is key.

When you are in a state of ketosis, the body turns fatty acids into ketones - these appear as beta-hydroxybutyrate in the blood. Measuring blood ketones is regarded as the gold standard and most accurate way to track ketone levels. Testing this way can be expensive, its can cost up to $3 a strip, so if you're testing multiple times a day it can get pricey.

If you ever wondered how to get into ketosis, know that getting into ketosis is easy and completely natural for your body. All you need to do is follow the ketogenic diet which involves cutting down on carbs and eating lots of fat. You can also get into ketosis through fasting. But if your goal is weight-loss and reaping all the benefits of ketosis, the ketogenic diet is a must.
Too much cortisol tells the liver that you are in physical danger and need a lot of energy fast. The brain doesn’t understand the difference between physical danger and emotional stress. When emotionally stressed, the brain thinks you’re in a life-and-death situation, so the liver comes to your rescue and gives you the glucose you need to fight off your attacker.
Ketosis is a metabolic state where most of the body’s energy supply comes from ketone bodies in the blood, in contrast to a state of glycolysis where blood glucose provides most of the energy. Ketosis is characterised by serum blood concentrations of ketone bodies over 0.5 millimolar with low and stable levels of insulin and blood glucose. However, with ketone supplementation (as you’ll learn about later in this article) ketosis can actually be induced even when there are high levels of blood glucose
Even though endurance athletes can train in a carb depleted state, they will generally consume carbohydrates in the lead up to a race (the athlete is seeking to increase the ability to run off fats by training in a carb depleted state, then benefiting from both fats AND carbs come race day). Likewise, with the brain, even though the brain can function off ketones, does it mean it’s the best state for brain function?
As for MCT oil (and oil powders), powder formulations tend to cause less digestive distress (e.g. probiotics), but some folks object to the additional ingredients like sunflower lecithin or soluble corn fiber). Even if you’d like to eventually settle on an oil, I’d recommend starting with a powder to see how you respond and to give your body the chance to adapt over time.

There are many different variations of intermittent fasting as well. Dr. Dom D’Agostino, the well-known ketogenic diet researcher, suggests doing a longer intermittent fast for 3 days, 3 times a year. This means not eating for 3 days, and eating normally until the next fast. Daily intermittent fasts are recommended as well. He says that it is ideal to have one to two meals after fasting for most of the day to reap the benefits of intermittent fasting every day.

Exogenous ketones can lower appetite during a fast. After an overnight fast, normal weight human subjects either drank a ketone ester supplement or a calorie-matched glucose drink. Compared to the glucose drinkers, the ketone drinkers had lower insulin, lower ghrelin, greater satiety, and less hunger. This can be useful for people trying to extend their fast who don’t want to or can’t yet deal with the hunger. You’re still taking in energy, but the metabolic profile remains similar to that of a fasted person.

So if your high-fat diet includes a high amount of roasted seeds or roasted nuts, nut butters, heated oils such as heated coconut oil or heated extra virgin olive oil, barbecued meats or meats cooked at very high temperatures, then your triglyceride count is going to go up. You should have triglycerides that are less than 150mg/dL, and a triglyceride to HDL ratio that is no more than 4:1, and in most of the healthiest people I’ve worked with, triglycerides are under 100 and the triglyceride to HDL ratio is less than 2:1. If your ratio is whacked, your ketogenic diet isn’t doing you any favors.’

If the goal is to deplete glucose levels so that we can start producing ketone bodies, then forcibly exerting physical energy through exercise is a great way to go about it. Keeping it relatively low intensity to begin with and working out in the morning is recommended as this helps to keep down your cortisol (stress hormone) levels. This only applies at the beginning of your keto adaptation process, as intense workouts such as HIIT once already keto-adapted will be completely fine.

When our cells undergo the process of autophagy, non-essential parts like damaged proteins are recycled and invading microorganisms and toxic compounds are removed. This means that autophagy plays an important role in stopping the aging process, reversing disease, and preventing cancer, but it doesn’t happen all the time. Fasting, protein restriction, and carbohydrate restriction are the three main ways that can initiate different autophagic processes — all of which are not the same. This is part of the reason why a ketogenic diet has so many positive effects, and it also shows you why intermittent fasting is a way to improve your diet even more.

Eating around 20 grams of net carbs a day is as a foolproof way to get you into ketosis a quickly as is humanly possible. However, having 50 grams of total carbs will also get you into ketosis within three days [3]. This amount of carbs is enough to deplete glucose reserves. It's also low enough to prevent fat being used to make glucose and, instead, the body is forced to make ketones.

That said, there also remains the question of the relative benefits of AcAc versus BOHB, both as independent signaling molecules and as redox modulators in peripheral (aka non-hepatic) tissues. Seen from this perspective, AcAc generated in the liver acts as a NAD+ donor for the periphery, whereas pure BOHB taken orally, to the extent that it is retro-converted to AcAc (Sherwin 1975), potentially deprives the periphery of NAD+.

Ketones are an alternate energy or fuel source for brain and body that our bodies have naturally produced and used for millennia. Ketones have recently leapt to the forefront of health and wellness conversations worldwide as the scientific body of research that seeks to understand their numerous unique properties and profound systemic effects has begun to grow (see below).

2. Shimazu, T., Hirschey, M.D., Newman, J., He, W., Shirakawa, K., Le Moan, N., Grueter, C.A., Lim, H., Saunders, L.R., Stevens, R.D., Newgard, C.B., Farese Jr, R.V., De Cabo, R., Ulrich, S., Akassoglou, K., and Verdin, E. (2013). Suppression of oxidative stress by β-hydroxybutyrate, an endogenous histone deacetylase inhibitor. Science 339, 211-214.
Great question. So if you are already in nutritional ketosis from your diet, exogenous ketones would still help raise ketone (energy) levels when you want that (maybe for focus at work or energy at the gym. They also help get you back into ketosis after cheat meals and skip the “keto flu” which is the period when your body is using up stored glycogen.

It's important to listen to your body when going through the ketogenic process. This means that you should only eat when you're hungry and not every single time you get a craving. It's our obsession with food that causes us to stuff ourselves whenever we feel like it, and you should know by now that it's not healthy to do that. When you make it a point to eat only when you're hungry, you're diminishing any food intake that your body doesn't really need.

Would this be helpful for someone with Hypothyroidism and HPA Axis dysfunction? I started a Keto/IF lifestyle after watching your videos early July and though I feel so much better inflammation wise, I am not seeming to be super fat adaptive as of yet. Would KetoEdge stress out my body with these things going on? I’d love to try it but want to make sure first.

This fasting process will not only activate autophagy in your cells, it will also increase your ketones much more quickly than if you were just eating a standard ketogenic diet. If you start implementing intermittent fasting and activities (like walking, cycling, or lifting weights) together, you can raise ketone levels and increase autophagy more than you would with intermittent fasting alone. This suggests that intermittent fasting would be a great addition to your life, but it is important to be familiar with the negative symptoms that can arise before you start.

If you’re wondering how to get into ketosis in 24 hours, and whether it’s even possible with such a short turnaround time, then combining a keto diet with intermittent fasting is a must. I am a massive advocate of not only the ketogenic diet but also the practice of daily fasting – I swear by it! It’s not for everyone as it does require a lot of discipline to pull off. But if you can commit to it, the benefits in my opinion are well worth it. So you may be wondering what intermittent fasting is? Well, it’s the practice of performing a daily fast from food and (caloric) drinks for at least 16 hours of the day.

When the results for the supplement and the placebo were within 0.2 (either % or mmol/L) of each other, we classed the supplement as neither “better” nor “worse” than the placebo. We gave a “winning brand” sticker to the brand that scored highest against the placebo for each marker, but not for physical performance, since none of the supplements performed better than the placebo for that marker.

Once you hit the bed, the adrenal glands will be off and the body will enter the anabolic stage. This will allow your body to repair itself. If you stay up late for long periods of time your body will enter the hypercatabolic state. In this state, the levels of cortisol in your body increase significantly. This also increases the insulin resistance of the body which would again increase the blood sugar levels.

Perfect Keto MCT Oil Powder is number one on this list for a few different reasons. The company is founded by functional medicine clinician Dr. Anthony Gustin and each ingredient is used in specific amounts to provide maximum ketone benefits. They use zero binders and fillers often found in other MCT oil powders. It’s a premium product and they don’t make up for it by jacking up the price. However, number 3 on this list has a very similar product at a better value. That’s what keeps this from being a complete 5. However, it’s quality is one of the very best. This MCT Oil powder is one of the only MCT powders that uses ZERO additives and fillers.

As repeated KE consumption would be required to maintain nutritional ketosis, we investigated the kinetics of drinks in series and of continuous intra-gastric infusion. During starvation, the accumulation of ketones (>4 mM) reportedly inhibited ketone clearance from the blood, however the underlying mechanism is unknown (Hall et al., 1984; Wastney et al., 1984; Balasse and Fery, 1989). In Study 3, βHB uptake and elimination were identical for the second and third KE drinks, suggesting that βHB may have reached a pseudo-steady state should further identical boluses have been given at similar intervals. Furthermore, when the KE was given at a constant rate via a NG tube, blood ketone concentrations remained ~3 mM. Therefore, repeated KE drinks effectively maintain ketosis at the intervals and doses studied here.
Also, it’s important to remember that just because something may be SAFE (and to reiterate, I’m not saying a long term ketogenic diet is safe), it doesn’t mean it’s good for you or beneficial. Running Marathons could be considered safe (especially if it’s on a closed race circuit), but does this mean it’s good for you? Or should you be out running marathons every day?

Hi- Thank you for this super helpful post. I’m new to Keto and supplementing Keytones. I just got the Julian Bakery Keytones and am curious about how to take them as there are no instructions on the packaging. Indeed the website has a diet plan to follow with the keytones but I am very suspicious of it because it is 0 fat which I believe is not healthy for brain or body and given that I have soft tissue and joint issues, I try to eat enough fat daily. I want to lose weight and I crossfit 5 days per week. So how do I best start with using the keytone supplements? I took a scoop full yesterday when they arrived (in the early afternoon) but hadn’t yet eaten and I think that was a mistake because I had immediate diarrhea which lasted a few hours, even after eating.

A meal high in carbohydrate and calories significantly decreased peak d-βHB by ~ 1 mM (Figure ​(Figure4A)4A) and reduced the d-βHB AUC by 27% (p < 0.001, Figure ​Figure4B).4B). There were no significant changes in d-βHB Tmax (fed = 73 ± 6 min vs. fasted 66 ± 4 min). Despite the differences in d-βHB kinetics after the meal, there were no effects of food on urinary ketone excretion (Figure ​(Figure4C),4C), plasma AcAc (Figure ​(Figure4D)4D) or breath acetone (Figure ​(Figure4E)4E) following KE ingestion. Plasma AcAc kinetics followed a similar time course to d-βHB, with the ratio of blood d-βHB: AcAc being 6:1 when KE drinks were consumed whilst fasted, and 4:1 following the meal. As observed in Study 1, breath acetone concentrations rose more slowly than blood ketone concentrations, reaching a plateau at 150 min and remaining elevated for at least 4 h (Figure ​(Figure4E4E).
In the second of these posts I discuss the Delta G implications of the body using ketones (specifically, beta-hydroxybutyrate, or BHB, and acetoacetate, or AcAc) for ATP generation, instead of glucose and free fatty acid (FFA). At the time I wrote that post I was particularly (read: personally) interested in the Delta G arbitrage. Stated simply, per unit of carbon, utilization of BHB offers more ATP for the same amount of oxygen consumption (as corollary, generation of the same amount of ATP requires less oxygen consumption, when compared to glucose or FFA).

Affiliate Disclosure: There are links on this site that can be defined as affiliate links. This means that I may receive a small commission (at no cost to you) if you purchase something when clicking on the links that take you through to a different website. By clicking on the links, you are in no way obligated to buy.

Medical Disclaimer: The material on this site is provided for informational purposes only and is not medical advice. Always consult your physician before beginning any diet or exercise program.